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International audience ; The present South African city form is a hybrid product of the colonial and formal apartheid discourse which ordained urban spaces as the domain of the white race. As the democratic initiatives of the 1990s gained momentum various strategies were pursued to reverse the effects of racial planning.

International audience ; The restructuring of local government is especially significant in the context of South Africa's emerging democracy, especially since this transformation "has taken place in a way that is probably unique from an international comparative perspective". Out of all the political systems that have gone through a non-revolutionary regime transition from authoritarianism to democracy, South Africa is the only one where this transition occurred simultaneously at a national and sub-national level. The reasons for this relate to a large extent to the structure of South Africa's towns and cities and to the nature of the urban social movements that resisted, challenged and overthrew urban apartheid during the decade of defiance that led up to the decade of transition, namely the 1980s" (Swilling, Monteiro and Johnson, 1995:16, original emphasis).

International audience ; Equal opportunity for all citizens, as enshrined in the Constitution of South Africa (1996), places gender as one of the key areas of redress in the process of transformation of the state and its structures. Local government has been a focal area of policy transformation, ensuring gender equity and equality. A case study of the Durban Metropolitan Area (1996 to 2000) revealed that women's participation in local government is fraught with problems, which bars their progressive development. The research identifies key stakeholders whose interventions would contribute to engendering state structures enabling equitable participation of women in local government.

International audience ; Countries seeking to remake the structure of their societies have placed a strong emphasis on the development of a viable and effective system of local government. The restructuring of local government is especially significant in the context of South Africa's emerging democracy. A key component of this process has been boundary delimitation, which involved a process of spatial organisation and re-organisation. In South Africa the de-racialisation of local government represents a major challenge. Many affluent white local authorities were reluctant to give up the power and privileges of the old order and merge with previously black local authorities. Also, the socio-spatial distortions of the apartheid era need to be addressed through a more equitable distribution of resources, and the re-drawing of geographical boundaries. Attempts at municipal restructuring in South Africa have been fraught with problems and conflicts. The conflicts engendered, the negotiations, compromises, and coalitions generated constitute important areas of research. Examining and elucidating the manner in which these various forces have manifested themselves in the major metropolitan centres is the central theme of this paper. The focus of this paper is on boundary delimitation in the Durban Metropolitan area.